


You Get Me

by glim



Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, Friendship, Kink Meme, M/M, University
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-21
Updated: 2010-03-21
Packaged: 2017-10-08 05:07:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/73006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glim/pseuds/glim
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wherein Arthur and Lancelot are chivalrous, Merlin and Will are romantic, and Gwen and Morgana have breakfast in bed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Get Me

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the kinkme_merlin prompt: _Arthur/Lancelot, Merlin/Will, something where Arthur and Merlin are gay but don't hook up -- sort of the gay best friend thing but platonic._

"Come on, Merlin. One more flight up."

Clutching the banister with one hand, Merlin rubbed at his eyes with the other and yawned, long and loud and as noticeable as he could make it. He'd left his warm bedroom and even warmer boyfriend to accompany Arthur to the uni library at some ungodly time in the morning and still couldn't quite figure out _why_.

"… m'tired… and you're never here this early."

Arthur's gaze drifted off to the side away from where Merlin stood in the stairwell and he shrugged. "It's not really early anymore. It's half-past nine. And I'm here often. Lately."

"Liar. You spent every Friday morning last term sleeping off a hangover."

"_Lately_, I said."

Merlin shook his head and rubbed at his itchy-tired eyes again. There had to be some reward for putting with the likes of Arthur, right? His late night trips to the library were tolerable and resulted in Merlin getting more work done than he would lazing in front of the telly. And spending at least half his afternoons studying here with Arthur before they both made the trek from campus back to the house they shared – that was something Merlin had gotten accustomed to back during their first term at uni.

But having to be here on a Friday morning was beyond the call of any sort of best friend duty.

Arthur didn't even have the decency to look sleepy. He looked awake and showered and well-breakfasted, and like he'd spent at least thirty minutes in front of the mirror trying to get his hair to look artfully mussed. He also had on the fancy blue jumper instead of the usual hoodie or button up he'd wear over his tee shirt. He probably even _smelled_ nice, clean skin and that stupid expensive after shave he got from his father every Christmas.

And. Oh god. No.

Merlin's stomach sank a bit and he raced up the last few stairs to catch up with Arthur as he disappeared through the door from the stairwell into the library proper.

"Arthur? Arthur, no. Whoever he is, he's not worth being awake this early for," Merlin whispered and followed Arthur through the stacks. "Arthur?"

"Shh!" Arthur turned to him with an admonishing expression and mouthed 'Library, Merlin.'

Merlin opened his mouth, shut it again, then shook his head and whispered back, "Arthur. Just. NO. Please?"

That earned Merlin a rather prim look from Arthur, who headed over to a table without waiting for Merlin, even when Merlin stumbled over some huge dusty pile of books.

Arthur also refused to talk to Merlin for the first half hour, despite the fourth floor stacks being, for the most part, empty (sane people were asleep; Merlin, it seemed, had given up on sanity years ago) and eerily quiet. Arthur finally relented and started to explain to Merlin about his upcoming presentation for his econ course when Merlin started to doze off at the library table.

"… and, I think, the power point will work really well. As long as I remember to…to…" Arthur's voice trailed off and his eyes went sort of soft and unfocused, and a completely ridiculous smile appeared on his face. "Hi."

"Hey, Arthur." A guy, about his and Arthur's age, with longish, dark hair and warm eyes, smiled back at Arthur as he walked up to their table. He gave Merlin a little nod, too, and talked to Arthur for a couple minutes about the footie before touching Arthur briefly on the shoulder and going to sit down at his own table.

The ridiculous look was still on Arthur's face ten minutes after he'd given the other man a slightly breathless, slightly awkward goodbye. He smiled vaguely at Merlin, at his presentation materials, at the shelf of Roman history books, and back at Merlin. At least until Merlin rolled his eyes, then Arthur looked offended and went back to his coursework.

Merlin put his head down on the table and decided he wasn't awake enough to deal with another term featuring Arthur-in-love.

 

*

 

"Is he straight? They're usually straight, aren't they, the ones you go this stupid over?" Merlin added about three more bags of crisps than absolutely necessary to the shopping basket and looked over Arthur's shoulder at their shopping list. "We need Coke, yeah?"

"Yeah. I mean, yeah, Coke. Lance, no, he's not straight and I don't go stupid over anyone. We don't need all those salt and vinegar ones." Arthur let Merlin look at the list once more, but tugged it away when Merlin tried to take it from him. "No, I'm in charge of the list. You'll lose it. Again."

"Once! I lost it once. Oh, and, come on, your history with footie players is not a pretty one." Merlin traded one of the bags of salt and vinegar for prawn, and another for Twiglets. "Owain?"

A faint blush crept up the back of Arthur's neck. It wasn't _his_ fault if Owain had drunk-snogged him and completely led him on before Arthur had found out he wasn't really into men. Or into Arthur. Or… whatever. Arthur cleared his throat and glared at Merlin's addition to the basket. "Nobody likes those," Arthur pointed out and tried to reach for the offending snack food.

"_I_ like those. And if I'm helping to run this party, we're having what I like, too."

Arthur just let out a sigh. Two half-full, incredibly stale, forgotten bags of Twiglets were hiding at the back of the cupboard from last term's parties. Trying to get Merlin to eat those in a non-inebriated state was positively futile and Arthur, for some reason, just didn't have the heart to tell Merlin they already had uneaten Twiglets at home. He'd bin them the next time Merlin went back to Ealdor to visit his mum.

"Gwen knows him," Arthur said, trying to be casual, but judging by Merlin's frown, he'd only managed confusing. "Lance. Gwen knows Lance. They worked the Iris table together last freshers week."

That seemed to satisfy Merlin for the moment. Most of the people Gwen knew from the LGBT centre were really more than decent. Besides, Arthur had made her coffee one morning last week in an attempt to get her (a) out of bed and away from Morgana so she could (b) tell him what she thought about Lance and possibly (c) thereby reveal what sort of chance Arthur stood with him.

Which wasn't to say that Merlin's opinion didn't matter. Of course it mattered. It mattered in the same way that it mattered that Arthur could always tell when Merlin was too drunk or was coming down ill and needed somebody to force him to drink glasses of water or juice and put him to bed; and it mattered in the same way that it mattered that Arthur, half of the time, could tell what Merlin was thinking when he scrunched up his forehead and bit his bottom lip before he actually started to talk.

And it mattered in the same worn, comfortable way that it mattered that Arthur could remember how Merlin had sat up with him all night, rubbing his back and bringing him cups of tea, the first time Arthur had had his fifteen year old heart broken.

"Just be careful, all right?" Merlin said. "He's coming to the party next weekend? All right," he added and cupped Arthur's elbow to direct towards the soda aisle, "you can introduce me to him properly then and not just drag me to the library to watch you go completely stupid over him."

 

*

 

After having been good friends with both Arthur and Merlin for the two and a half years that they'd all been at uni, and after having lived with them for one and a half of those years, there were a few things that Gwen knew for certain about her housemates. Currently, the bulleted list she kept in her mind looked something like this:

> o. They've been best friends for about ten years, starting from the moment Merlin offered to share his sandwiches with Arthur when Arthur's father forgot to pick him up from school one afternoon. Arthur still claims he just wanted something to eat.
> 
> o. They've slept together twice and tried dating once. Each of the these three events ended in disaster and the third in broken crockery. _Gwen's_ crockery, so she's forbade them both from attempting romantic complications with each other, including threesomes, as long as she's sharing a house with them. (She loved that mug with the tiny rainbow sheep on it. _Loved_.)
> 
> o. They were both currently sitting at the kitchen table, drinking coffee and playing cards, at ten o'clock the morning, probably still drunk from last night's celebrations.

"Are you two really awake? Or have you not yet gone to bed?" Gwen flicked on the kettle and tugged to straighten the tee shirt she'd pulled on along with a pair of the boxer shorts Morgana liked to sleep in. They both had the lovely warm scent of her girlfriend's body on them and Gwen shivered a little at the contrast between that warmth and the cold linoleum. "You haven't gone to bed, either of you, have you?"

Merlin and Arthur exchanged a short look. Arthur ducked his head a little, then gave Gwen a half-smile before turning back to Merlin and flicking one of the cards at him. Or, well, at the table, though Merlin held an arm up in front of his face in defense just in case Arthur was coordinated to aim.

All right, yeah, still drunk, the both of them.

"Will gone, Merlin?" Tea and chocolate biscuits, that was good enough for breakfast, so Gwen reached up for the packet of digestives and tucked it under her arm. Morgana liked it when she licked the crumbs up off her.

"Yeah, he has work at the newsagent's today."

"What about your romantic entanglement, Arthur?"

Merlin laughed and Arthur made a spluttering noise into his coffee. "We're not –"

"You looked pretty well entangled to me last night. Did he stay? I mean. You don't _have_ to tell me, but I'd like to know if I ought to expect random naked men in my loo."

Another splutter from Arthur. "Gwen!"

"He left a couple hours ago," Merlin replied. "Arthur was a gentleman and even walked Lance halfway to his flat."

"Oh, Arthur, that's so honorable of you."

Arthur flushed, rubbed the back of his neck, and compared one of Merlin's cards to his own. "I suppose Morgana's still here."

"I think you just bicker with her for the sake of bickering with her." Gwen nibbled on a biscuit while her cups of tea brewed. Morgana could probably only a stay a few more hours before she had to meet up with people for a study group thing, and they'd probably just spend that time together holed up in Gwen's room. She added milk and sugar to the tea, picked up both mugs, and took a few cautious steps back toward the bedroom. "Curry tonight?" she asked before leaving Merlin and Arthur to one of their no-rules-everything-goes-nobody-wins card games.

"Curry tonight," Arthur replied, then added, "no, wait, clean up mess, including explosion of Twiglets on sofa, then curry take-away."

 

*

 

Three weeks post-first party of term, there were still Twiglets caught between the sofa cushions. Merlin felt vaguely guilty about it when Morgana or Lance noticed, or when Arthur gave him the look that he was giving Merlin this morning.

The sort of hovering look, where he didn't say much, loomed about giving Merlin a more pointed glare every so often, and sighed a bit in a way that indicated he'd probably just crushed a bunch of Twiglets by sitting or stepping on them.

Except, this morning, not only was he hovering and not saying much and sighing a bit, he also was following Merlin about. He finally walked away when Merlin announced he didn't need an audience to shower, but reappeared fifteen minutes later after Merlin finished up.

"Sooo…"

"What?" Merlin didn't bother to stop scrubbing his hair dry, half-dressed in front of the bathroom mirror, when he heard Arthur approach the doorway. From the sound of his voice, Arthur had gone from hovering to uncertain. Not the crushed Twiglets, then. "Did you break something? Something of Gwen's?" He paused. "… something of _mine_?"

"What? No. I haven't broken anything since…"

They both got quiet this time. The Crockery Incident. They did not speak of it. Nobody was allowed to speak of it.

"Anyway." Arthur cleared his throat and leaned against the doorframe. He was dressed and showered and probably ought to have been on campus already. "Say you were going to do something romantic…"

"…"

"…?"

Merlin blinked at Arthur.

Arthur looked expectant. And vaguely guilty.

Merlin thought for a moment. "I don't know. Blow job?"

"Blow jobs are not romantic."

"Of course they are. Turn on some music or something." Merlin tried to not laugh at the scandalized look on Arthur's face. When that didn't work, he turned back to his own reflection, which only told him he'd cut himself shaving. "Okay, sorry, but your idea of romance seems to be going running at dark o'clock in the morning with your boyfriend. And, hold on, you've never asked me for ~romantic advice~ before, so what's wrong?"

"Nothing." Arthur shuffled his feet and avoided the return of Merlin's gaze. He looked tired, a little drained, actually, and it wasn't even mid-morning yet, and his mouth was set firm and tense. "My father rang. We had the expectations conversation."

"Ah." Accustomed to having to follow Arthurian thought process, it didn't take Merlin a great leap of logic to reckon that conversation had ended in an argument, possibly one Lance got to witness. Merlin reached over to rest a hand on Arthur's shoulder, squeezed tightly, and pulled him into a hug. "Sure, romance. Take Lance out, for dinner or something, then go back to his and spend the night and just, y'know, tell him you really want to be there with him. All right?"

"I… yes. All right." Arthur let out a shaky sigh, but was smiling when he moved away from Merlin and didn't look quite so anxious as he left to meet with his tutor.

When Merlin got back to his own room, he found Will stretched out on the bed, on top of the rumpled blankets, wearing jeans and… just jeans, probably.

"You feel like going with me to visit my Mum? Saturday afternoon?"

Will looked up from the notebook he was paging through. "I'm off work anyway, so, sure. Oh, right answer?" He smiled up at Merlin and shifted his hips once Merlin moved in to straddle them.

"Definitely." Merlin pressed his mouth to Will's, and pressed in closer at the feel of strong fingers slipping under the waist of his shorts. "Now, how about some romance?"

Will made a noise of appreciation and arched up into the wet path that Merlin licked and kissed down the front of his body. "Well, I am a romantic sort of bloke."

 

*

 

Being with Merlin was, you know, being with Merlin. Friday afternoons at the pub and beer and take-away during the week some nights, sex between lectures and bus trips to Ealdor, and Merlin's brilliant, lopsided smile and old, worn scarves and that wonderful, wonderful thing he did with his mouth that was entirely ... romantic.

For a while there it felt like Will had also been in a relationship with Arthur, and god was that a right pain in the arse, given that he had to spend all that time with Arthur and listen to his odd assortment of anxieties, without the benefit of sex.

Which. God. No. For all that Arthur was well fit, Will couldn't actually imagine wanting to have sex with Arthur, not in any realistic way that might mean he'd have to listen to Arthur go on about whatever it was people like Arthur talked about during sex. Footie or the stock market or something, probably. He'd tried to ask Merlin about it once, but only found out the murky past that was Arthur and Merlin's attempt at dating included broken dishware and, Will thinks, possibly, tequila.

Never mind. Merlin and Arthur seemed best off as mates, and Will and Arthur… were both very fond of Merlin and had a tacit pact to try and not get fed up with each other too much.

Which, again, never mind. He was more than fond of Merlin. Oh, yes, much more than fond, Will thought, moved a few boxes in front of the drinks cooler, and let his mind drift back to yesterday morning.

He loved when Merlin did stuff like that, walked into the bedroom his skin still warm and damp from a shower, soapy-clean smelling, and decided they needed to have sex right then and there. And, god, really, he did do wonderful things with his mouth, licking all down Will's body so that he was fucking hard by the time Merlin reached the fly of his jeans. It had been all crazy, fast and hard, after that, and god, but Will did not end up wearing that same pair of jeans out of Merlin's house later on that day.

The thoughts powered Will through the restocking, at least until he heard the door the newsagents open.

With it came a rush of cold air and Merlin, pink nosed from the wind and wearing what looked like about a dozen random layers of clothing, leaned against the counter. "I see you've conquered the Lucozade."

"Right, yeah? After I do chocolate bars and breath mints, I'll be able to set up our kingdom." Will stood up and dusted off his hands. "Hey, you."

"You," Merlin retorted, smiling, and leaned into the kiss Will gave him. "I've got loads of coursework, so, library time, but then I'll come to yours?"

"Mm. You make good plans. Did you stop by for something instead of texting?"

Merlin shrugged. Then he glanced away for a second, smiled, and leaned in again to kiss Will.

 

*

 

"Here, you don't need to leave yet." Lance sat down on the edge of his bed and pressed a cup of tea into Arthur's hands. "At least, I don't want you to leave yet."

Arthur glanced over his shoulder with that strange, shy look that Lance was still getting to know, and smiled briefly before taking the tea. "I'm surprised. I was wreck last night."

"You weren't."

"You're … you're being too good to me."

"Hm." After a moment of thought, Lance slipped closer to Arthur and kissed the back of his shoulder. They'd woken up early enough to go running like they tended to some mornings, but hadn't really even managed to get out of bed yet this morning. Not that Lance was complaining. Waking up and having Arthur curl into his arms was another thing he was still getting to know. "Maybe something of a wreck. The momentary emotional breakdown over pasta and wine was unexpected."

"Bonus you get when dating Arthur Pendragon," Arthur mumbled. "You thought it would just be emotional repression. But, no, there's more to look forward to."

Lance paused, caught the faintly exasperated and amused tone of Arthur's voice, and kissed his shoulder and the side of his neck. "You know it's all right, Arthur? You can come here and be a wreck. I know you have your friends –"

" – that's different – "

"I know. And it's good. You have good friends. It's good that you come over here, too."

Arthur tensed for a moment, then relaxed, and tipped his head back. "It is. Good. What if I stay for the weekend? And make it up to you?"

"You don't need to do that; there isn't anything to be made up for. But, you could stay. We can try dinner again tonight."

"Dinner, yes. And, well, other things. Though, perhaps not so much with the comfort sex tonight."

Lance smiled against Arthur's shoulder and waited for him to finish and put the tea aside before moving one hand over Arthur's bare chest. Arthur was a lot of things – intelligent, handsome, diligent about his studies and the sport he liked – and not really shy about any of them.

His strange, shy, flickering moments of vulnerability were about as attractive as the strong set of his jaw and his forceful personality. Maybe even more so this morning, with his bed-mussed hair and sleep-hoarse voice, body still half-buried under the duvet.

"Or this morning."

"Or this morning," Arthur agreed readily. His head rested warm and heavy against Lance's shoulder for a moment before he turned to brush his lips against Lance's neck. He nuzzled in close, then closer, until Lance could feel Arthur's smile against the curve of his neck and shoulder.

Arthur pulled Lance back into bed, the dark, wanting look already in his eyes, and nuzzled over Lance's face again. When he smiled, it was that same breathless smile that had first made Lance stop at his library table and introduce himself to Arthur and want to skim his fingers over Arthur's shoulder.

 

*

 

"I love it when you bring me toast," Morgana said, licking jam and bread crumbs off Gwen's fingertips, "I'm not sure there's actually anything better for breakfast."

"The biscuits. You like those." Gwen laughed at the tickle of Morgana's tongue down the length of his fingers to the palm of her hand, that adorable, bright laugh that managed to reach her eyes as well as her voice. "Oh, and I like _that_."

"I love it when you bring me breakfast," Morgana amended, now licking just the very tip of her tongue against the pulse-point at Gwen's wrist, "I love it when you come back to bed, sleepy and tousled, wearing my pajamas, and you feed me nibbly things for breakfast."

Gwen laughed again, and drew her arm out so Morgana could lick her way over to the crook of Gwen's elbow. She smelled of bed-warm skin, sweat, and yesterday's perfume, and tasted of that delicious salty-sweetness that Morgana always seemed to associate with the nights they slept together.

"I suspect I'll have the house to myself this weekend."

"Mm? Can I be invited over, then?"

Gwen squirmed closer to let Morgana lick at her shoulder and the rise of her breasts. "Oh, I think so. We can try making that cake or that other cooking thing you wanted to do."

"And have really loud, really raw lesbian sex?"

"And – oh, yes, Morgana," Gwen sighed.

She liked this, too, the way Morgana would keep licking over her collarbone and then dip her tongue under the thin, yellow vest she'd put on to go fetch breakfast from the kitchen. Morgana pressed a few slow, soft, wet kisses to Gwen's skin and waited until Gwen sighed once more, then slipped down to keep kissing over her breasts.

It wasn't that having Gwen's housemates around was terrible. Well, no, Arthur was sort of terrible, but he could be really sweet, and Merlin was a darling most of the time, and they all looked after each other, and Gwen cared about Merlin and Arthur, so Morgana did, too.

Besides, it was often better at Gwen's place than at her own, though Morgana's flatmates were decent and understood the meaning of privacy, the place was small enough that she knew almost every tiny detail of their love lives and had no intention of sharing her own.

So. Yes. It would be marvelous to have Gwen all to herself this coming weekend. Not just for the unrestrained sex, though Morgana was already starting to plan that out and was thinking there might, possibly, be massage oil involved. No, there'd also be girlfriend time, unmitigated, uninterrupted by housemates or lectures or study meetings at the campus café or people accidentally spilling Twiglets in her lap and apologizing by adding lager to the mix girlfriend time.

And, really, how could Morgana not be looking forward to that?

 

*

 

Walking through the whip of cold, mid-winter wind, Arthur concentrated on what it had felt like to wake up with the brush of his boyfriend's lips against the back of his neck. He wasn't sure if he'd actually managed anything close to romance last night, but it had been good. Lance was good. Patient. Sympathetic, even. Really good in bed, too.

And, bonus, sleeping with him never seemed to result in Arthur breaking anyone's favorite mug.

Walking across campus was good, too. Even meeting Morgana for coffee to discuss the business course they had together was good. Before Morgana had started seeing Gwen, Arthur had just called her Nemesis and conducted a one-sided rivalry to try and get better marks than she did.

Now the rivalry was two-sided and he only called her Nemesis in private.

But, well, she made Gwen happy, and she'd let Arthur borrow her notes when he'd had 'flu last term and had missed a couple days of classes, so he supposed she wasn't all bad. There were worse nemeses to have.

Meeting Merlin later at the library would also be good. He sort of owed Merlin productive library time after dragging him there for those couple Friday mornings at the start of term. And for yesterday, too, but it wasn't difficult to imagine that he'd be paying Merlin back for that conversation a hundred times over in the future. Merlin knew him in ways that Arthur couldn't begin to quantify or express, and knew him well enough that Arthur was grateful he wouldn't have to find some neat expression to sum up their friendship, but could just look after Merlin in his own way.

A few steps away from the café, he waved to Morgana, but held off saying hello when his mobile buzzed. She gave him an impatient expression in reply, then went into the café when Arthur just shrugged and pulled out his phone.

He answered without bothering to check the number ID. "What? No, do you even pay attention to the texts I send you? Coffee shop, then library. Coffee shop. Right, come meet me here. What? No. Not unless you want to sit and hear about international business. Come in about an hour. And wear your scarf and gloves. Because you will freeze to death or kill me complaining about how you've caught a cold – I know you. Scarf _and_ gloves. Okay. Bye."


End file.
